The cost of a conventional display system may be lowered by reducing the number of tone scale levels of pixels within image data. An exemplary imaging system includes image data that is to be displayed may contain 24 bits of information, with eight bits each being reserved for red, green, and blue tone values. Many conventional display systems are able to display the image data at the resolution at which the image data was stored. Displaying the image data on such display systems typically results in a viewable image that is similar to the original image.
A typical method for reducing the cost of a display system is to limit the resolution of the digital-to-analog converters that are used to produce a video signal. Thus, pixel tone values are truncated when the resolution of the tone values exceed the resolution of the digital-to-analog converter used in a display system. However, truncated pixel tone values often result in perceptible, abrupt changes in tone in displayed images. Spatial dithering is often used to reduce the perceptibility of using truncated pixel tone values.